Mauritius

Bridget and I woke up around 7:30 am and sadly turned over when we saw
that it was grey and rainy out side. We got dressed and headed up to
breakfast because they were already calling the seas to get passports
checked. We were off the boat by 9:30am which was awesome. At the
gangway as we were swiping out it was POURING rain. We sprinted off into
a tent near by and met up with Morgan, Jessie, and Tor who we had
planned to spend the day with.
After bartering with a few taxi drivers we found one who would take us
around all day for a pretty good price. We squashed into the cab already
completely soaked. Upon first impression I was honestly expecting the
main town of Port Louis to be more quaint and cute- it was pretty
industrial with Mcdonalds and tourists traps. It was raining pretty hard
and we asked our driver if he thought it would let up- his response in
his very sweet creole accent was "no certainly not today" and he looked
out the window at the sky and continues "no no definitely no sun". It
was pretty funny honestly to think that we are in one of the most
beautiful places on earth for only 8 hours and it was pouring rain- even
the roads were starting to flood by the afternoon.

As we drove further out it got a bit more "island" ish. After a 30
minute drive we got to an awesome beach! It was still raining- but
started to let up so we decided to go snorkeling! This was definitely
the highlight of my day. They took the 5 of us out a bit in a boat a
little ways gave us flippers and a mask and we jumped in! The water was
very calm in the bay with no waves but we could see an awesome coral
reef with lots of little fish! The water was perfectly clear and very
warm. Our guide would throw bread into the water so fish would come up
and there were hundreds of bright blue fish completely surrounding us.
The coral was beautiful and though we didnt see any crazy big or
spectacular creatures it was really fun and cool to swim around and
explore the "brain coral".

It started to rain pretty hard so we stopped a bit early and got back to
the beach and got in the taxi back to port louis. It really was a bummer
that it was raining because we had really wanted to go on a hike to the
waterfalls and enjoy a day around the beach but the rain was falling in
sheets so we really could barely be outside. The driver took us to a
spot for lunch on the water in the main city.

Before lunch we were so wet that we attempted to dry off for about 10
minutes under the hand driers in the bathroom-it was pretty funny and we
didn't get that dry. Lunch wasn't very good but we were able to sit and
relax and warm up which was really necessary. Next we ran across the
street in the rain to McDonalds because we wanted mcflurries.

Then our cab driver picked us up and took us to the port louis bazzaar.
It was a huge covered market with fresh fruits and vegetables on the
first floor and touristy shops on the second floor. The bottom floor
seemed really local so it was cool to see people buying all of their
fresh produce. We got a bunch of fruit which was really good. After this
we went to a grochery store quickly to stock up on snacks for ship (not
very good selection) by this time we had to head back to the ship. So in
the pouring rain we found our driver and headed back.

My warm shower and sweatpants never felt so good!

We had a really fun day together and I loved spending more time with the
group of people I was with but it really was a bummer about the rain and
only being there for such a short amount of time. We definitely made the
absolute best of it and we all really did have a fun day!

Back on the ship the crew had planned an outdoor bbq that had to get
moved inside- the best was hearing about everyone elses days- got to
hear about the catamaran cruise that some people went on- people said it
was cold, got cut short, they didnt get any food, and will probably get
a cold from it. Glad we chose not to do it! Good to be back on the ship
for 6 days before Cape Town! Ill post again soon!